Holmes radiometric dating

One crucial area the RATE project did not touch on was the issue of how reliable are the determinations of the radioisotope decay rates, which are so crucial for calibrating these dating “clocks.” However, in a recent series of papers, Snelling (2014a, b, 2015a, b, 2016, 2017) reviewed how the half-lives of the parent radioisotopes used in long-age geological dating have been determined and collated all the determinations of them reported in the literature to discuss the accuracy of their currently accepted values.He documented the methodology behind and history of determining the decay constants and half-lives of the parent radioisotopes U which are used as the basis for the Rb-Sr, Lu-Hf, Re-Os, Sm-Nd, K-Ar, Ar-Ar, U-Pb, and Pb-Pb long-age dating methods respectively.Zircon (Zr Si O) in particular has been the focus of thousands of geochronological studies, because of its ubiquity in felsic igneous rocks and its claimed extreme resistance to isotopic resetting (Begemann et al. However, accurate radioisotopic age determinations require that the decay constants or half-lives of the respective parent radionuclides be accurately known and constant in time.

Nor can the measured Pb isotope ratios be used to somehow decide what proportions of them are the initial Pb without recourse to unprovable assumptions about the mineral or rock’s history or their interpreted U-Th-Pb ages within an assumed deep time history.

Nevertheless, the ultimate foundation of this U-Pb dating methodology is the assumption that the earth formed from the solar nebula.

There is also primordial Pb that the earth acquired when it formed, its isotopic composition determined as that of troilite in the Canyon Diablo iron meteorite.

Subsequently new crustal rocks formed via partial melts from the mantle.

However, even uncertainties of only 1% in the half-lives lead to very significant discrepancies in the derived radioisotope ages.

The recognition of an urgent need to improve the situation is not new (for example, Min et al. It continues to be mentioned, at one time or another, by every group active in geo- or cosmochronology (Boehnke and Harrison 2014; Schmitz 2012).

There is thus no impediment to accepting and using the Bible’s account of Creation and the Flood as a reliable framework for unravelling the history of the earth and the Pb isotopes found in its minerals and rocks.

Radioisotope dating of minerals, rocks and meteorites is perhaps the most potent claimed proof for the supposed old age of the earth and the solar system.

However, problems remain in the interpretation of the measured Pb isotopic ratios to transform them into ages.